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The History Channel - Encyclopedia Category: History and Culture > History Date & country: 02/12/2007, UK Words: 25833

devaluation
In economics, the lowering of the official value of a currency against other currencies, so that exports become cheaper and imports more expensive. Used when a country is badly in deficit in its...

developing world
Those countries that are less developed than the industrialized free-market countries of the West and the industrialized former communist countries. Countries of the developing world are the...

Devens, Charles, Jr
(1820-1891) US soldier and jurist. He fought on the Union side at the Peninsula and at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Richmond. After the war, he served on the Massachusetts Superior Court and the...

Deventer, Jacob Louis
(1874-1922) South African soldier. Originally a farmer, he became second-in-command to General Smuts in the Boer invasion of Cape Colony. When a Boer rebellion broke out in South Africa 1914, he prevented...

Devers, Jacob Loucks
(1887-1979) US soldier. In charge of US armoured forces during a developmental period from (1941-43), he led combat troops in North Africa (1944) and served as commander of the 6th Army Group in southern...

devil
In Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theology, the supreme spirit of evil (Beelzebub, Lucifer, Iblis), or an evil spirit generally. The Devil, or Satan, is mentioned only in the more recently written...

devil's advocate
See Advocatus Diaboli. ...

Devine, George Alexander Cassady
(1910-1966) English actor and theatre director. A director of the Young Vic training school from 1946, he was appointed artistic director of the English Stage Company at the Royal Court Theatre, London, 1956,...

Devlin, Bernadette
Birth name of Bernadette McAliskey, Northern Irish political activist. ...

Devlin, Denis
(1908-1959) Irish writer and diplomat. Born in Greenock, Scotland, of Irish parents, he was educated at University College, Dublin, in Munich, Germany, and at the Sorbonne, Paris. Devlin's verse combines a...

Devlin, Patrick Arthur
(1905-1992) British judge, a distinguished jurist and commentator on the English legal system. He was justice of the High Court in the Queen's Bench Division 1948-60,...

devolution
Delegation of authority and duties; in the later 20th century, the movement to decentralize governmental power. Scotland and Wales In the UK a bill for the creation of Scottish and Welsh assemblies...

Devolution, War of
War waged unsuccessfully 1667-68 by Louis XIV of France in an attempt to gain Spanish territory in the Netherlands, of which ownership had allegedly `devolved` on...

Devonshire, 8th Duke of
British politician; see Spencer Compton Cavendish Hartington. ...

devotio moderna
Movement of revived religious spirituality which emerged in the Netherlands at the end of the 14th century and spread into the rest of Western Europe. Its emphasis was on individual, rather than...

Devotional Revolution
Movement 1850-75 inspired by the Irish Catholic archbishop Paul Cullen that transformed contemporary lay-centred Irish Catholic...

DeVoto, Bernard Augustine
(1897-1955) US author, critic, and historian. He held an instructorship at Northwestern University, joined the Harvard faculty, and then became editor of The Saturday Review of Literature. He published three...

Devoy, John
(1842-1928) Irish-born US journalist and republican activist. In 1861, he joined the secret society of the Fenians to struggle for an independent Ireland. After serving five years in prison (1866-71), he...

DeVries, Peter
(1910-1993) US editor and writer. After a varied early career, he became editor of Poetry, then joined the New Yorker editorial board as a protégé of James Thurber. His works include Tunnel of Love (1954),...

devsirme
Levy of one in four males aged 10-20 taken by the Ottoman rulers from their Balkan provinces. Those taken were brought to Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and converted to Islam before being...

Dewey, George
(1837-1917) US naval officer. He saw action on the Mississippi River and in the blockade of Southern ports during the American Civil War 1861-65. As commodore, he was dispatched to the Pacific 1896. He...

Dewey, John
(1859-1952) US philosopher who believed that the exigencies of a democratic and industrial society demanded new educational techniques. He expounded his ideas in numerous writings, including School and Society...

Dewey, Melvil
(1851-1931) US librarian. In 1876, he devised the Dewey decimal system of classification for accessing, storing, and retrieving books, widely used in libraries. The system uses the numbers 000 to 999 to...

Dewey, Thomas Edmund
(1902-1971) US public official and governor of New York 1942-54. Dewey was twice the Republican presidential candidate, losing to Franklin D Roosevelt in 1944 and to Harry Truman in 1948, the latter race...

Dewhurst, Colleen
(1926-1991) Canadian stage and television actor. A powerful character actor, she made her Broadway debut in 1952 in Desire Under the Elms. She was the winner of two Tony and two Obie awards. She...

Dexter, Colin
(1930) English author of best-selling detective fiction and creator of Inspector Morse, who first appeared in the book Last Bus to Woodstock (1975) and later became the central character in a popular...

DFE
Abbreviation for Department for Education, a former UK government department. ...

Dhammapada
One of the most important Buddhist books, which forms a part of the Pali canon of earliest texts. It consists of 423 verses, divided into 26 chapters, and deals primarily with practical aspects of...

dharma
In Buddhism, teaching and scriptures of the Buddha, whose words and principles lead to enlightenment; also the `universal law`. The doctrine of the dharma is summed up in the Four Noble Truths:...

dharma
In Hinduism, the consciousness of forming part of an ordered universe, and hence the moral duty of accepting one's station in life. For Hindus, correct performance of dharma has a favourable effect...

Dhegiha
Branch of the American Indian Siouan language family. ...

Dhiban
Alternative spelling of Dibon. ...

Dhíkti
Mountain of eastern Crete, Greece, the highest in the Dhíkti range; height 2,148 m/7,047 ft. According to ancient Greek mythology, Zeus was born there. ...

DHSS
Abbreviation for Department of Health and Social Security, UK government department until divided in 1988; see social security. ...

di Donato, Pietro
(1911-1992) US writer. His semi-autobiographical novel, Christ in Concrete (1939), brought him instant fame. His subsequent fiction, mostly naturalistic portrayals of the hard lives of Italian working-class...

Di Pietro, Antonio
(1950) Italian judge. He was head of the mani puliti (clean hands) series of anti-corruption investigations that began in 1992. His investigations into allegations of corruption in Milan's local...

Di Suvero, Mark
(1933) Chinese-born US sculptor. After attending the University of California, he settled in New York City and founded the SoHo Cooperative Gallery. His works include large outdoor sculptures, such as...

Diable boîteux, Le
See diablo cojuelo, El. ...

diablo cojuelo, El
Spanish satirical novel in the picaresque tradition by Luis Velez de Guevara (1579-1644), derived from Jewish legend. It was first published in 1641 and later adapted by Alain-RenéLe Sage as Le...

Diadochi
Macedonian generals who fought one another for the empire of Alexander the Great, in a series of conflicts known as the Wars of the Diadochi 321-280 BC. They were Antigonus and his son Demetrius I...

Dial, The
US magazine of transcendentalism 1840-44, founded in Boston by several of the transcendentalist group, including Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) and Ralph Waldo Emerson, its first and second editors...

dialectic
Greek term, originally associated with the philosopher Socrates' method of argument through dialogue and conversation. Hegelian dialectic, named after the German philosopher Hegel, refers to an...

dialectical materialism
Political, philosophical, and economic theory of the 19th-century German thinkers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, also known as Marxism. ...

Diallo, Boubacar Telli
(1929-1977) Guinean politician and first secretary general of the Organization of African Unity (OAU; later African Union). After independence he became Guinea's first permanent representative to the United...

dialogue
Conversation between two or more people. Dialogue is direct speech, so it is represented in writing as a series of quotations, using quotation marks or, in dramatic dialogue, the characters' names...

Diamond Jubilee
Celebration in 1897 of the 60th year of Queen Victoria's rule. The jubilee was a celebration of both Crown and Empire at the peak of British colonial power. The scions of other royal houses, many...

Diamond Necklace, the
Piece of jewellery made in Paris in 1775 by the court jewellers, Boehmer and Bassenge, allegedly for Madame du Barry, the mistress of Louis XV. Louis died before the necklace was completed. In 1784,...

Diamond S?tra
Part of the Perfection of Wisdom S?tras (Prajnaparamita), first written down some time between the 2nd and the 5th century AD. The Diamond S?tra (Vajracchedika- meaning thunderbolt s?tra but...

Diamond v. Chakrabarty
US Supreme Court decision of 1980 that defined human-engineered micro-organisms as patentable products. ...

Diana
In Roman mythology, the goddess of chastity, hunting, and the Moon; daughter of Jupiter and twin of Apollo. Her Greek equivalent is the goddess Artemis. The huntress was depicted as an athlete...

Diana, La
Spanish pastoral romance by Jorge de Montemayor published in 1559. The meandering story, with passages...

Diana, Princess of Wales
(1961-1997) Member of the UK royal family. Daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer, Diana married Prince...

Diane de France
(1538-1619) Natural daughter of Henry II of France and Filippa Duca. She was formally legitimized in 1547. She had great influence on her brother, Henry III, whom she succeeded in reconciling...

Diane de Poitiers
(1499-1566) Mistress of Henry II of France. She exercised almost unlimited power over the king, who made her Duchess of Valentinois. When he died she was expelled from court by his widow, Catherine de' Medici. ...

Dianetics
Form of psychotherapy developed by the US science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard (1911-1986), which formed the basis for Scientology. Hubbard believed that all mental illness and certain forms of...

diaper
In Gothic architecture, a small pattern of a conventional nature, generally geometrical but sometimes floral in design, used for the surface decoration of stone. The idea was probably taken from the...

Diarmid
Three Irish kings:Diarmid I of the Uí Néill dynasty, King of Tara, killed in 565 in revenge for having killed a youth who had taken sanctuary with Columcille (St Columba);Diarmid II, King of Tara,...

diary
Informal record of day-to-day events, observations, or reflections, usually not intended for a general readership. One of the earliest diaries still in existence is that of a Japanese...

diaspora
Dispersal of the Jews, initially from Israel and Judah 586-538 BC after the Babylonian conquest (the Babylonian Captivity, or exile); and then the major diaspora following the Roman sacking of...

Diat, Louis Felix
(1885-1957) French-born US chef and author. He trained at the Paris and London Ritz Hotels before going to the New York Ritz-Carlton Hotel. There, he oversaw the ambitious French cuisine that the restaurant...

Diavolo, Fra
(1771-1806) Italian patriot and outlaw. As a monk, he was appointed by Cardinal Ruffo to help recover Naples, which had been invaded by the French 1799. Diavolo became one of the leaders of the `bands of the...

Diaz de la Peña, Narcisse Virgilio
(1808-1876) French landscape painter. His early works were strongly influenced by Eugène Delacroix but from the 1840s he painted landscapes in the forest of Fontainebleau with others of the Barbizon School....

Diaz de Solís, Juan
(c. 1471-c. 1516) Spanish explorer in South America who reached the estuary of the Río de la Plata, and was killed and reputedly eaten by cannibals. ...

Díaz del Castillo, Bernal
(c. 1492-c. 1581) Spanish soldier and chronicler. He arrived in the New World in 1514 with conquistador Pedro Arias de Ã?vila (c. 1440-1531) and took part in the exploration of the Gulf coast of Mexico in 1517 and...

Díaz Ordaz, Gustavo
(1911-1979) Mexican right-wing political leader, president 1964-70. He sought to continue the reform programme instituted by Adolfo López Mateos and developed closer relations with the USA, but was...

Díaz, (José de la Cruz) Porfirio
(1830-1915) Mexican soldier and politician, dictator-president (caudillo) of Mexico 1877-80 and 1884-1911. He seized power after losing the 1876 presidential election. He dominated the country for the...

Diaz, Armando
(1861-1928) Italian general in World War I. After the Battle of Caporetto November 1917 he replaced Cadorna as Italian commander-in-chief and held the Austro-Hungarian advance on the line of the Piave. He...

Diaz, Bartholomeu
(c. 1450-1500) Portuguese explorer, the first European to reach the Cape of Good Hope, in 1488, and to establish a route around Africa. He drowned during an expedition with Pedro Cabral. ...

Dibdin, Thomas John
(1771-1841) English dramatist and songwriter. He is said to have written about 200 plays, including the pantomime Mother Goose (1807) and the patriotic The Mouth...

Dibon
Capital of the ancient country of Moab, in Jordan near the shore of the Dead Sea. The Moabite Stone, dating from the 9th century BC, was discovered here 1868. ...

dicast
Athenian juror. Under the Athenian democracy, 6,000 jurors were chosen annually from citizens aged 30 and above, who had not been deprived of civic rights and did not owe money to the state. They...

Dicey, Albert Venn
(1835-1922) English jurist and writer on constitutional law. His main works are Lectures Introductory to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, 1885, and Lectures on the Relation between Law and Public...

Dick Tracy
Comic-strip character created by US cartoonist Chester Gould 1931. The strong-jawed detective's battles against the ruthless criminal underworld involved such characters as Flattop, Pruneface,...

Dick, Philip K(endred)
(1928-1982) US science-fiction writer. His works often deal with religion and the subjectivity of reality. His protagonists are often alienated individuals struggling to retain their integrity in a...

Dick, William Reid
(1879-1961) Scottish sculptor. His work includes a large number of portrait heads and busts, notably the busts of King George V in the Mansion House, London; of Horatio Kitchener in St Paul's Cathedral; and the...

Dickens, Charles (John Huffam)
(1812-1870) English novelist. He is enduringly popular for his memorable characters and his portrayal of the social evils of Victorian England. In 1836 he published the first number of the Pickwick Papers,...

Dickens, Monica (Enid)
(1915-1992) English writer. Her first books were humorous accounts of her experiences in various jobs, beginning as a cook (One Pair of Hands, 1939); she went on to become a novelist. She was a...

Dickenson, Mother Clare Joseph
(1755-1830) English-born US Catholic religious founder. Emigrating to the USA with other Carmelite nuns in 1890, she helped found the first Carmelite convent in the USA, near Port Tobacco, Maryland. ...

Dickey, James Lafayette
(1923-1997) US poet, critic, and novelist. His fiction deals mainly with guilt arising from acts of individual or collective cruelty and the struggle for survival. His powerful best-seller Deliverance (1970;...

Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth
(1830-1886) US poet. She wrote most of her poetry between 1850 and the late 1860s and was particularly prolific during the Civil War years. She experimented with poetic rhythms, rhymes, and forms, as well as...

Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes
(1862-1932) English writer and intellectual. He was a lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His works include The Greek View of Life (1896), The European Anarchy (1916), War: Its...

Dickinson, John
(1732-1808) American statesman. With law practices in London and Philadelphia, he espoused the colonial cause, but worked for reconciliation with Britain. His numerous political writings earned him the title of...

Dickinson, Preston
(1891-1930) US painter. A Precisionist, his focus on fact and rejection of emotional responses can be seen in The Factory (1924). His later work, such as in Plums on a Plate (1926) and Still Life with...

Dickman, Joseph Theodore
(1857-1927) US soldier. He saw action on the western frontier and in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, led a division and later a corps in France in 1918, and commanded the US 3rd Army during the brief...

Dickson, Carter
Pseudonym of US crime writer John Dickson Carr. ...

dictatorship
Term or office of an absolute ruler, overriding the constitution. (In ancient Rome a dictator was a magistrate invested with emergency powers for six months.) Although dictatorships were common in...

dictatorship of the proletariat
Marxist term for a revolutionary dictatorship established during the transition from capitalism to communism after a socialist revolution. In the USSR the communist rule from 1917 till the adoption...

Diderot, Denis
(1713-1784) French philosopher. He is closely associated with the Enlightenment, the European intellectual movement for social and scientific progress, and was editor of the...

Didius Julianus, Marcus
(AD 133-193) Roman emperor AD 193. He was proclaimed emperor by the Praetorian Guard at a mock auction of the imperial throne following the death of...

die-hard
In British politics, towards the end of 1918, a nickname given to Conservatives who wished to abandon the coalition government under David Lloyd George and return to the orig ...

Diebenkorn, Richard
(1922-1993) US painter. A leading member of the second generation of abstract expressionists, he gained worldwide renown for his Ocean Park series of mainly abstract canvases 1967-88. Diebenkorn was born in...

Diefenbaker, John George
(1895-1979) Canadian Progressive Conservative politician, prime minister 1957-63. In 1958, seeking to increase his majority in the House of Commons, Diefenbaker called for new elections; his party won the...

Diego, José de
(1866-1918) Puerto Rican-born poet and public official. He founded Puerto Rico's Autonomist Party and co-founded its Unionist Party. He was president of the House of Delegates, Puerto Rico's first...

Diemen, Anthony van
(1593-1645) Dutch admiral. In 1636 he was appointed governor general of Dutch settlements in the East Indies, and wrested Ceylon and Malacca (now Melaka) from the Portuguese. In 1636 and 1642 he supervised...

Dien Bien Phu, Battle of
Decisive battle in the Indochina War at a French fortress in North Vietnam, near the Laotian border. French troops were besieged 13 March-7 May 1954 by the communist Vietminh, and the eventual...

Dieppe Raid
In World War II, a disastrous Allied attack August 1942 on the German-held seaport on the English Channel about 305 km/190 mi northwest of Paris. The limited-objective raid was partly designed...

Dierx, Léon
(1838-1912) French poet. He was a member of the group Les Parnassiens. He is chiefly noted for the following works:Poèmes et poésies/Poems and Poetry (1864), Lèvres closes/Closed Lips (1867), Les Paroles...

Dies, Martin
(1900-1972) US Democratic politician. A Texas lawyer and rancher, he was a member of the House of Representatives 1931-45 and 1953-59. He was chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee...

diet
Meeting or convention of the princes and other dignitaries of the Holy Roman (German) Empire, for example, the Diet of Worms of 1521 which met to consider the question of Luther's doctrines and the...

Dietl, Eduard
(1890-1944) German general. Dietl joined the Nazi Party 1920 and by 1939 was a major-general commanding 3rd Mountain Division which he led in Poland and Norway 1939-40. During t ...